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Please, EVERYBODY play the Elite queues

It doesn't matter how bad your build is.
It doesn't matter how bad you think you play.
It doesn't matter if there are some "I never want to fail, I'll rather not play than fail!" naysayers in your team.

Queue up on Elite. The only way those queues get filled is if people queue up. Publicly. Not in some private group that guarantees a swift victory by overpowering anything the mission. Play with a risk to fail.

And if you get shred to pieces, it doesn't matter. Queue up. You'll enable others to play, you'll possibly have a few glorious moments even then, and even if not, you might find out something about your ship or your captain.

Queue up. On Elite. Publicly.



(Every replier who misses the point gets a virtual cookie.)
Remember, STO is nothing but a cosmetics game, where only the rule of cool matters. The game mechanics are intentionally out of balance, don't try to "optimize" anything, as it would just frustrate you.
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Comments

  • talonxvtalonxv Member Posts: 4,257 Arc User
    Nope.
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    Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!

    http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
  • spacewreckedspacewrecked Member Posts: 3 Arc User
    Speaking as a player w/ mediocre-at-best skill and builds that are probably nowhere near optimized, my concern with joining elite queues is that I would be saddling the other four players with a fifth partner that's taking up a slot that could have been filled by a more useful contributor. Are Elite queues so hard to fill in general that those other players would trade off a less-capable team member for getting to do Elites faster?

    I don't mind failing - the game wouldn't be fun if there weren't challenges to overcome and I've been destroyed plenty of times in the battlezones but still enjoy playing them - but I'm concerned that if I did get blown up right away or just generally wasn't a maximized player that I'd be leaving the other participants doing more than their fair share. At the same time, I'm not knowledgeable enough about Elites to know if simply having a fifth to get on with the game is worth the extra baggage. More feedback from Elite players in that regard would be helpful.
  • leemwatsonleemwatson Member Posts: 5,331 Arc User
    sophlogimo wrote: »
    [...] Are Elite queues so hard to fill in general that those other players would trade off a less-capable team member for getting to do Elites faster?

    Indeed the Elite queues are extremely empty, certainly also in thanks to people who insist "if your build isn't finished, don't go into Elite", which is nonsense, of course.

    I'd rather fail in an Elite queue than grow bored while waiting for a queue to ever happen.
    I don't mind failing - the game wouldn't be fun if there weren't challenges to overcome and I've been destroyed plenty of times in the battlezones but still enjoy playing them - but I'm concerned that if I did get blown up right away or just generally wasn't a maximized player that I'd be leaving the other participants doing more than their fair share. At the same time, I'm not knowledgeable enough about Elites to know if simply having a fifth to get on with the game is worth the extra baggage. More feedback from Elite players in that regard would be helpful.

    There are not "Elite" players. It is just a game, after all. Some people make a big fuss how they know a bit more about it than others, and want to feel superior about it, but in the end, it is JUST A GAME.

    So don't hesitate to play it on Elite. Success? Pff, who cares. As long as the game can be played at all.

    Actually the biggest 'complaint' you'll find is 'it's not worth my time because I don't think the reward is obscenely high enough'. Well, that's the excuse in most cases for everything anyway.

    Gone are the days when people actually played to enjoy a game. Every game ever made is a grind, yet people just don't get it.
    "You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
  • jrdobbsjr#3264 jrdobbsjr Member Posts: 431 Arc User
    Thanks, no...I'd rather not get abused in chat from certain players like the ones who post her about how they think anyone who doesn't meet thier standards should be expelled from the game....using passive-agressive methods such as permadeath for your character, of course.....because they have to carry a "scrub" like me. I can go play WoT or WoWS for that.
  • garaks31garaks31 Member Posts: 2,845 Arc User
  • nikephorusnikephorus Member Posts: 2,744 Arc User
    edited December 2017
    I used to pug Elite space queues with a bud of mine that I play with regularly, but ever since the balance pass pugs fail so completely at Elite that we don't really bother anymore. There is no point in doing Elites in a pug when failure is all but guaranteed. Now don't get me wrong I don't mind failure, but I need there to be at least a small possibility of success and there is near zero chance in Elite pugs.
    Post edited by nikephorus on
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  • warpangelwarpangel Member Posts: 9,427 Arc User
    Most of the queues simply aren't worth playing as things stand.
    leemwatson wrote: »
    Gone are the days when people actually played to enjoy a game. Every game ever made is a grind, yet people just don't get it.
    Some people enjoy getting rewards and don't call it "a grind."

    I have played all the content in this game. Once. But I only do the same things again if it's necessary to achieve a goal. Which the queues, excluding a few with accolades, aren't.
  • kodachikunokodachikuno Member Posts: 6,020 Arc User1
    No thx, Id rather not. I'll queue up for adv when I go, a nice mix of 'able to contribute meaningfully' and 'not guaranteed to fail disasterously if the team isnt perfect'
  • nixie50nixie50 Member Posts: 1,259 Arc User
    sure.. I'll jump in so I can get all the nasty cooments the nicest of wich would be "learn to play"
    if I want abuse i'll call my ex-boyfriend
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    We Need BERETS in the tailor
  • thunderfoot#5163 thunderfoot Member Posts: 4,540 Arc User
    Why?
    - So I can catch a load of BS from some basement dweller who spends twenty five hours a day playing STO?
    - So I have to minimize the Chat window to avoid listening to someone measure their epeen all over the place?
    - So I can PUG with someone who has a Skittles Boat and insists on soloing something they have no chance of even taking down?
    - So I can carry another player who hasn't any idea what's going on?
    - So I can put up with yet another AFKer who then berates everyone else because he didn't get his Shiny?

    I make a serious effort to not drag someone else's enjoyment through the mud. There are people who are better at this game than I am. Me q'ing for Elite content drags them down and holds them back. I abso-frakkin'-lutely refuse to be the cause of someone else wasting their precious free time. Nearly every time I make an attempt to play Elite anything, it ends badly and IS NOT FUN.

    I am not trying to speak for others here, only myself. But I suspect there are a great many people with similar attitudes. Thanks but no thanks, I'll stay on Advanced.
    A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
  • sheldonlcoopersheldonlcooper Member Posts: 4,042 Arc User
    I haven't played in a long time. I always play ground elite when I do. But what space ones are there really? They made the good one impossible didn't they? The one where Harry taunts you.
    Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."

    "With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."

  • peterconnorfirstpeterconnorfirst Member Posts: 6,225 Arc User
    edited December 2017
    Here here, what an ambitious topic OP.

    Yea there are really times where participation is so slow that one is grateful for every lobby shadow and warper around to get certain maps to pop. I think times where players, with DPSer in particular, refuse to play with weaker team mates are long time gone. Those who do still are often weak themselves and simply need strong team mates for success.

    I don’t know if we ever see a healthy elite queue infrastructure again. Sadly the most engaging PvE content in this game has too much competition by lucrative alternatives for rewards from elsewhere.

    While ground maps tend to be a bit livelier one of the major problems for space is also what I think to be a design flaw, a paradox if you will. In most maps there the player encounters tedious and annoying time gated tasks which are mixed with brief DPS checks in between or often at the end. In my experience this is a major turn of for literary every possible consumer of PvE:

    -> High DPSer get annoyed by preset timer which demands to do tedious task without the option to speed them up.
    -> Low performing players who do not mind time gated, tedious tasks have zero chance to overcome the DPS checks.
    -> Challenge seekers as in puggers notice pretty fast that success of a mission is basically decided upon team-up already with only minor chances to influence the actual outcome of a map.

    I think only cryptic could get this situation resolved by either making the content itself more appealing or by tuning the rewards better to the respective mission.

    That’s what I learned especially from mirror afk. Every map, no matter how terrible it is designed, seems to have its price.
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    Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
    felisean wrote: »
    teamwork to reach a goal is awesome and highly appreciated
  • spencerb96spencerb96 Member Posts: 241 Media Corps
    reyan01 wrote: »

    I gather a few high-DPS premade teams have done it, but for the vast majority of the playerbase it's completely impossible. Hence why no-one plays it.

    Yes, Korfez is one of the hardest queues now, sets a good standard for what Elite content should look like. It's just unfortunate that it has no Normal or Advanced setting so more people can enjoy it. It really is a great queue.

    Ideally, you want 5 people for it that are all doing >75k DPS with that build in ISA. 75k DPS is quite a bit, most of the playerbase is in the 15-30k range, but it's still not "min-max" territory post-S13. We've still got people posting >200k DPS in pug ISAs, so 75k is certainly a reachable goal for those that put some effort in to do so.


    Now, OP, I'm sorry if you took the statement I made in that Korfez earlier as me being too elitist. In that specific run we had 3 people doing 1/2-1/3 of what is needed for that queue, and we had one person doing so little damage that they nearly got an AFK penalty.

    Elite content is fun and a challenge is always great for people. But I still feel that if people are queueing for Elite content and failing hard, it's important to let them know where they are performance wise, and where they can get help so that they can successfully run these in the future.

    I worded it in not the best way in team chat, which is why I apologized. Joining an elite queue and having a shot at succeeding is great, but joining something that you will never even get past the first stage in isn't really fun.

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  • lordsteve1lordsteve1 Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    Trouble with the likes of Korfez is that due to the lack of lower tier versions nobody has a hope in hell of learning the mission. So newer low end players can’t ever hope to go in knowing what to do, no wonder they are unprepared for it.
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  • feralaffferalaff Member Posts: 77 Arc User
    Well,
    My builds range from 30-45k DPS.
    So i am not a super dps.
    I enjoyed a few elites, like "gateway to Gre'thor", but with at least 3 friends.
    (Sadly one of those is not playing anymore because linux is not supported).
    We always finished the mission, but i don't recall getting all the optionals.

    Point was: we were fairly sure to finish the elite.
    If you want to do elite queues, you can add me as friend. Very happy to do them sometimes!
  • spencerb96spencerb96 Member Posts: 241 Media Corps
    coldnapalm wrote: »

    I'm sorry...but the average STO player does not do 15-30k DPS. The average person on a DPS channel maybe.

    That data was from SCM pre-S13, so the numbers may be a bit off right now. Anyone in an ISA run with someone parsing that uploads will be uploaded if they meet the requirements. This means the DPS tables have quite a bit of data on players that don't participate in the DPS channels.

    Now, looking at the data again, we have less than half the parses since S13 than we did between S12 and S13.

    This is the current distribution of DPS based on the current SCM table.

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    Top .2%: >200k DPS
    Top 1%: >127.8k DPS
    Top 10%: >61.3k DPS
    Top 25%: >38.2k DPS
    Median: 21.3k DPS
    Top 75%: >12.1k DPS

    So, overall numbers far off from S13, top 10% is where S13 becomes noticeable, with much less activity there due to people not playing at that level post-S13
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  • lordsteve1lordsteve1 Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    That’s an interesting graph I must say. Shows just how little of the player base is actually high up in terms of DPS. So if Cryptic were looking at similar data they would be aiming most content at the 75% who are around only 10-20k.
    Probably why there’s very little to challenge the top end players, there’s so few of them it’s not worth the effort to create content for only 1% of the population.
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  • spencerb96spencerb96 Member Posts: 241 Media Corps
    lordsteve1 wrote: »
    That’s an interesting graph I must say. Shows just how little of the player base is actually high up in terms of DPS. So if Cryptic were looking at similar data they would be aiming most content at the 75% who are around only 10-20k.
    Probably why there’s very little to challenge the top end players, there’s so few of them it’s not worth the effort to create content for only 1% of the population.

    Korfez was balanced to a point which was more than the top 10% pre-S13. I think you can probably get by in it still if you're in that top 10% block and know what to do.

    In any case, that top 10% right now is still ~800 players. Large enough to me to justify it, especially with the $ those players put in to grab something that might give em an extra % or two.

    Now if only we could get them to give substantial rewards past marks or dil to entice people to consistently play these elite queues.
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  • spencerb96spencerb96 Member Posts: 241 Media Corps
    sophlogimo wrote: »
    That is still warped, because most players will never show up in that statistic.

    Anyone in ISA with someone parsing will be uploaded (if they meet the requirements) when the person parsing hits the upload button.

    So, say I pug an ISA. If I'm parsing and hit the upload button at the end, everyone on my team just had their DPS score uploaded to the DPS league table if they met the combat time requirement and less than 50% of their damage was to the Gateway.
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  • peterconnorfirstpeterconnorfirst Member Posts: 6,225 Arc User
    sophlogimo wrote: »
    And we are now discussing boring DPS statistics instead of the fact THAT EVERBODY SHOULD QUEUE UP FOR ELITE if the Elite queues are supposed to make sense at all. Otherwise, they won't pop.

    That is the problem right there… Too few of the space elites do make sense the way they are designed. That's why they are empty. ;)
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    Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
    felisean wrote: »
    teamwork to reach a goal is awesome and highly appreciated
  • gaevsmangaevsman Member Posts: 3,190 Arc User
    Honestly, I don't play elite, because I play for the rewards, not the queue itself, if I queue up, I expect to receive something for my time, which is scarce, so, if I fail, (perhaps because of me or others, who knows), I wasted valuable time, as I think most of us have RL commitments, and cannot spend most of the day in STO (except when I'm on vacation... but oh well), I even hardly enter advanced, because of the same reason... I 'been in too many failures, like the tzenkethi RA and on normal!, c'mon! :wink:
    The forces of darkness are upon us!
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